I was wondering if anyone has heard about this route or has been following the saga on supertopo for years?

This aid route ascends a long blank slab, was put up by two outsiders in what was a very closed circle of climbers over 39 days, was never repeated but often slandered and has now seen an ascent after 29 years.

Many claimed it was manufactured, chipped, riveted etc...but no one really knew. It was graded A5.

Ammon McNeely and his Mrs finished it after 13 days of effort and logging 60 footers on the endless hooking sections and are now being tight lipped while making a film.

No other route on El Cap has had so much discussion....the likes of John Middendorf, Steve Grossman, Scott Cosgrove, Werner Braun, the original FA team, etc etc have all weighed in, as well as everyone else...

The interesting stuff, or most boring depending on your take, is the discussions between Middendorf who defends/references the great wall climbers/climbs such as Walt Shipley, Xavier Bongard, Jim Bridwell, Sea of Dreams, Jolly Rodger, Zenyatta Mondatta etc....

I have definitely heard of it, but haven't followed the accompanying saga.
It is good to hear that it has been repeated, and you have now piqued my interest in it again for light reading when I have time!
;-)

I have been aware of the Wings of Steel saga, but only in more recent times. The massive thread on Super Topo makes for some interesting reading (not that I have read all of it).

At the end of the day however I am left with the same conclusion I've always had about aid climbing. It is simply too contrived and too tedious to get excited about wanting to do it myself. But reading all the bullshit associated with various ascents is somewhat entertaining.

>At the end of the day however I am left with the same conclusion I've>always had about aid climbing. It is simply too contrived and too tedious>to get excited about wanting to do it myself. But reading all the bullshit>associated with various ascents is somewhat entertaining.>
It would certainly turn most people off it, that's for sure. Similar to the endless debates on bolts though in trad climbing, without the pedantry but equal in the boring absolute ethics....

A comment by Ron O on the last page regarding big wall master John Middendorf...
"I'm LMAO to see the shoe on the other foot. It seems somebody is a hell of a lot more forthcoming about his own routes than he is about his claims of imaginary bolt ladders on somebody else's...This whole WoS uproar speaks volumes about what a bunch of whack jobs we climbers are, furiously arguing over the arrangement of deck chairs while we pointedly ignore the iceberg dead ahead."

On 23/08/2011 phillipivan wrote:>Yep. I read a few of those threads, but there is an awful lot of shit to>wade through.>>I am curious about the Ammon's 2nd Ascent and film, is there more info>somewhere?

Formerly a Ditch denizen, I'll chime in with a "Zzzzzzzzzzzzz". Would concur with Simon's comments as well. Also, I believe WOS was graded A4 (Reid guide) although Richard gave Winds of Change A5. I don't know if Ring of Fire has a grade or even a topo.

The yosemite boys were also very harsh on hall of mirrors on galcier point apron. It seems that it was the first all free grade VI route in the US, and also the hardest route in the country for 12 years. It's only had 1 repeat, 25 years later. They fell 3 times trying to CLIP a hand-drilled bolt on the crux pitch.

In terms of WOS, I've wasted far more time than I should have following the Supertopo thread on and off over the last few years. It isn't exactly bringing out the best in anyone at the moment, though there's a certain car-wreck quality to Mimi and Coz having it out online that makes it hard to look away.

I'll be interested to hear Kait and Ammon's take on the climb (unfortunately they're being cagey about it until the film is released), but other than that the threads just about reached the stage of a bar brawl between philosophers over the number of angels on a pin.

Not a climb I'll be trying to get onto when I hit Yos next month, in any case...

Try explaining the WOS saga to a non climber in a few sentences. "So these 7th Day Adventist guys went to the holy land of climbing and did this route that they claim was really hard-well dangerous actually- in the sense that you could fall really far, hit something and mess yourself up bad which is how this kind of climbing is rated. Since they were out of towners and nobody liked them or believed them these local dudes went and took a crap on their ropes and thus started 30 years of bitter bile spewing akin to the Israelis and Palestinians.

As for their religion, well it probably played a role in their alienation from the rest of the climbing community. And their practice of resting on the Sabbath added close to another week of being on the wall (which extended to 39 days).

On 25/08/2011 simey wrote:>That's a pretty good summary.>>As for their religion, well it probably played a role in their alienation>from the rest of the climbing community.
That's a pretty big call Simey. I can think of a few seriously religious US climbers who don't seem to have had issues (Tom Frost, Tobin Sorensen, Doug Englekirk spring to mind). It just seems to be another pathetic excuse that the valley group-think used to justify their actions. And there are a few parallels outside the climbing community of this treatment - anyone remember Evil Angels ; the Chamberlains were Seventh Day Adventists too.

I'm not saying their religion was justification for their alienation within the climbing community as I think it was totally unjustified. But I do think it played a role in giving many climbers another excuse to dismiss them.